Jerry Brown Calls for ‘Countermovement’ Against Trump on Climate Change

California Gov. Jerry Brown reacted with outrage to President Donald Trump’s executive order on Tuesday that reversed several of President Barack Obama’s executive orders, regulations and policies on climate change.

California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that President Trump has just made a “colossal mistake” in gutting the federal government’s effort to combat climate change, which will ignite a response Trump is unprepared to handle.

“It defies science itself,” Brown said in a call to The Times shortly after Trump signed an executive order that aims to bring an abrupt halt to the United States’ leadership on global warming. “Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump’s mind, but nowhere else.

“Yes, there is going to be a countermovement,” Brown vowed, predicting Trump’s actions will mobilize environmentalists in a way President Obama never could. “I have met with many heads of state, ambassadors. This is a growing movement. President Trump’s outrageous move will galvanize the contrary force. Things have been a bit tepid [in climate activism]. But this conflict, this sharpening of the contradiction, will energize those who believe climate change is an existential threat.”

The executive order on “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth” calls specifically for the “Rescission of Certain Energy and Climate-Related Presidential and Regulatory Actions,” as well as a review of regulations that impose a “burden” on energy production.

Brown participated in the international talks on climate change in Paris in 2015 and has vowed to go around the federal government, if necessary, to pursue his climate change agenda. Tuesday’s executive order does not affect the status of U.S. participation in the climate agreement.